Turning Toward Home

I’m a little slow in continuing this discussion on gospel, but we’ll chip away at it. Here’s a passage for some thought today, comes from Colossians 1:19-23:
“For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [Jesus], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Once you were alienated from God and were enemies in your minds because of your evil behavior. But now he has reconciled you by Christ’s physical body through death to present you holy in his sight, without blemish and free from accusation— if you continue in your faith, established and firm, not moved from the hope held out in the gospel. This is the gospel that you heard and that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven, and of which I, Paul, have become a servant.”

Paul makes a pretty clear statement here about the gospel, the gospel “that has been proclaimed to every creature under heaven” and of which Paul is a servant. Paul says here that God reconciled all things to Godself BY making peace with all things through the shedding of blood on the cross. Through the death of Christ we “who continue in our faith…not moved from the hope held out by the gospel” are presented as holy in the sight of God, without blemish and free from accusation. Paul says, that’s the gospel. For those who have faith, they will be presented as holy before God.

It has become very popular in churches and in theology today to go away from an undersanding of the cross and the gospel as an atonement for one’s sins - we’d rather talk about how God is love and loving and that he created us and knows us intimately - which is all true. But the Bible is so clear about how Christ’s death on the cross atones for our sin, for our mistakes, and gives us the opportunity to be clean and holy before God. I wonder if we are losing that piece in our churches and in our preaching.

I also wonder if it’s mainly Christians that like this emphasis. What I mean is that once you’ve been a Christian for awhile, you start to think you’re a pretty good person. You try and stop sinning so much and you kind of get the hang of it (or so you think). In that case, you don’t really want to talk about your sin that much anymore, because you’ve pretty much got that under control. Then you fall into beginning to think that God loves you because you’re a pretty good person, which isn’t really true at all. So you’d rather talk about God’s love than have to be reminded of the price that had to be paid for your sin and experience the humility that comes along with that.

So my question is, do we not want to talk about sin as central to the gospel because it’s embarrassing to us? Do we not want to admit our sin and recognize that we need God’s help with it? I’m not saying that this is the only thing the gospel is about, certainly not, but I am saying that we cannot deny that it is a key and foundational part of the gospel, according to the Bible.